Fun is essential!

This past year, 2020, was not fun for anyone, but hopefully we can start looking forward and finding ways to have fun again. After all, even though fun is sometimes considered a guilty pleasure in our culture, research shows fun is an integral part of living a full life.

Research on fun

1. Many of the studies on fun show how it is linked to learning, productivity, or aging. A large amount of research on happiness is directly related to how it affects productivity.

2. Unstructured play time has been shown to be extremely beneficial and important for development during childhood. In fact, lack of unstructured play time has been linked to aggression, violence, and criminality.

3. Having more money increases happiness, but only up to a certain point. Richer countries are not happier than poorer ones, for example, and lottery winners often end up more unhappy than they were before, even though they think of the event as a happy one.

How to play

1. Unstructured, improvised fun where you are discovering and creating the rules as you go:

   • Kids play in an unstructured way instinctively, making up the rules either with each other or adults.

   • Role-playing or fantasy, either sexy or not, is also an option.

   • Improv games.

2. Physical activity involving intention:

   • Focused on an activity or certain skill.

   • Focusing on NOT focusing on something specific, like a bike ride through the countryside or walk through your neighborhood.

3. Learning can be fun:

   • This could be a skill or a hobby, or something completely unrelated. Be sure not to make it become work, though.

4. Daydreaming, zoning out, or meditating:

   • Allowing yourself unstructured and unoccupied time has been shown to have a lot of mental health benefits.

   • Resist fighting boredom. Being bored is okay sometimes, and in fact it can be your brain’s most interesting and revealing time.

Our capitalist culture teaches us that we have no worth if we’re not being constantly productive. If we work now, as much as possible, then we’ll have fun later, which isn’t true. It makes us less healthy, less happy, and less productive. So remember to have fun!